Katrina and Ben (divemasters), Don (NY), Paul and Katy (MO), and Linda (buddies)

Kosrae Village Resort
http://www.kosraevillage.com/

The humble but beautiful honeycomb grouper Videograph by Rich Torkington in Kosrae 2001

Dive Journal: We start out in the rain this morning and motor north. We enter the water as it continues to rain, but fortunately the sun arrives mid-dive to improve the visibility.

This is a BEAUTIFUL dive site! What is so appealing is the tremendous heads of coral interspersed with patches of white sand. The sand seems to add more relief to the features and provides little coves to explore. Katrina later indicates that in the past Hiroshi Point has been rated as one of Rodale’s Top 101 dive sites in the world.

We see another white tip reef shark patrolling the reef – they don’t seem to take much interest in us divers. We also catch site of several new flavors of bannerfish, including a few very nice pair of singular bannerfish, who I’d guess are related somehow to angelfish. There is a gorgeous lined sweetlips, several red-breasted wrasses, and a yellowtail wrasse. There is a great juvenile lionfish hiding out inverted underneath a coral ledge, who is not too happy to see us.

We see a few fabulously painted honeycomb groupers and peacock groupers, typically sitting on a coral shelf getting cleaned by the wrasses. There is a school of bluefin trevally, a smalltooth jobfish, and an orange-striped triggerfish. There is also a school of bignose unicornfish and another school of rainbow runners. Near the dive end, I enjoy examining a juvenile tang (probably a brushtail tang) dodging in and out of the coral spikes.

SUMMARY OF SOME FISHES OBSERVED ON THIS DIVE:

This list was created by looking over the video footage and identifying each species. Mostly, just the new or notable species are listed.

• Brushtail tang juvenile
• Smalltooth jobfish
• Lined sweetlips
• Singular bannerfish
• Honeycomb grouper
• Bignose unicornfish (lots)
• Mimic surgeonfish
• Pink anemonefish
• Foursaddle grouper
• Johnston damsel
• Singular bennerfish
• Yellowtail wrasse
• Raccoon butterflyfish
• Teardrop butterflyfish
• Bronze reef chromis

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